


the restless summer air

by forochel



Category: Dark Is Rising Sequence - Susan Cooper
Genre: Fix-It, Future Fic, Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-14
Updated: 2013-11-14
Packaged: 2018-01-01 11:46:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1044458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forochel/pseuds/forochel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They meet again the summer after college, in that gasp between A levels and the start of uni, when Will finally gives into that call inside of him and takes the train back up to Tywyn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the restless summer air

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silveronthetree](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveronthetree/gifts), [extemporally (hidebehindtrees)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hidebehindtrees/gifts).



> This is for silveronthetree, who has been very patient and gave me the prompt of 'kissing maybe with hands involved' ages and ages ago. I am sorry this has expanded so much and that you had to wait for so long. Welcome back to the Intertubes, bb. 
> 
> I would never have got this finished without extemporally, so this is for you too, my fic-finishing catalyst, and pen-blwydd hapus, cariad. Thank you for letting me make you read the books, that one magical day we went to see the David Bowie exhibition.

They meet again the summer after college, in that gasp between A levels and the start of uni, when Will finally gives into that call inside of him and takes the train back up to Tywyn.

It feels like something breaks open under his ribs, when the train from Birmingham approaches the rising mountains, gilded pink and gold in the wake of the setting sun; pure gladness drowns out any misgivings Will may have been nursing on the long journey up. The sky deepens smoothly into the darkest blue and nothing but the weakly lit sign announcing “TYWYN” can be seen by the time the train pulls into the station.

Will is the only one to disembark here. He hitches his rucksack higher up on his shoulders and steps onto the platform, looking round to try and get his bearings.

“Over here, sais bach,” someone calls, and Will starts. His heart starts thumping harder and faster, irrationally enough, as a lanky figure topped with a mop of pale hair emerges out of the dark.

“Bran,” Will says, eyes wide and pulse roaring in his ears. “I thought it might be Rhys or Uncle David.”

Bran laughs shortly, his hands stuck in his pockets. “Sorry, it’s just me.”

“No, no,” says Will. “I didn’t mean it that way, I mean — it’s very nice to see you again.”

“Oh, yes?” Bran says, a mocking lilt to his voice. It’s old and familiar and Will finds that he still hates it.

“Yes,” Will says earnestly, “And it’s nice to be in Wales again. I missed it. Really, I did. It’s just … this is silly, but it’s like coming home again.”

Bran ‘hmms’ a non-committal reply and starts walking, and Will hurries to catch up. “Where are we going?” he asks.

“Well,” Bran says, “We could drive back up now, or we could go to the pub. I daresay you’re hungry after all that travel.”

“Famished,” says Will fervently, his stomach suddenly stirring to life at Bran’s words.

“Well then,” Bran says, and smiles. His eyes gleam strangely, as they pass under a street lamp, and Will wonders at this old friend and how the summer will go.

Bran’s shot up like a weed, and he looks it too: he is a tall and lanky figure, whip thin and with a stride that makes Will, who has stayed short and stocky, feel rather like he is scurrying. They turn right out of the station yard and walk up the high street, at the head of which warm yellow light spills out onto the street from the pub. 

“Will they still be serving food?” Will asks doubtfully. “It is almost half ten.” 

He gets a glance, and Bran opens his mouth to answer, but then they are already on the threshold of the pub and through the door, open to air out the uncomfortably warm room on the inside and let some sea breeze in. 

Will finds himself being pushed towards a small table next to the door, and commanded to sit, and that a Martha shall rustle up something for the weary English traveller, before he is left alone in his corner to sit amidst raucous Welsh voices all chattering merrily and loudly to themselves. He could, if he tried, make himself understand them, but at the moment Will feels like just being plain old Will Stanton from Bucks, and letting the lilting, musical sounds wash over him. 

“Well, hallo there,” someone says, and sit down across from him. “You’re not David Evans’s nephew, are you?”

Will looks up from the stupor he had fallen into, and into a kindly old face. 

“Oh!” says Will, with a flash of recognition. “You’ll be the porter, from — gosh, what was it, eight years ago?”

The porter’s face creases into a smile. “He remembers! And has it really been eight years? You’ll be off to university, then, like young Bran over there.”

Smiling back, Will says, “I’m surprised you remember me, sir. And, um, yes, I’m going to university in London.” He manfully resists the urge to ask where Bran’s going; they’d tried to keep up a correspondence, but it had been hard-going. 

“It was a fair bit of excitement, that summer you visited,” the old man says. “Not so much as you’ll be having in London, though.”

Bran arrives then, and puts a steaming plate of food down in front of Will. He nods at the porter, “Sut mae, Huw? And who’ll be having what in London?” 

“Da iawn, diolch,” Huw replies, and gets creakily up from his chair. “Your friend here is going to London, Bran, surely you ought to know that.”

“Hmm,” says Bran, looking at Will — who cannot read his expression. “I’m going down to Cardiff for music,” he says to Will casually, and then turns back to Huw. “Have a good evening.”

“Goodbye!” Huw says cheerfully, and walks back to the bar. 

Will waves at him, before turning his attention to the plate — a few slices of pinkish lamb, some indifferent vegetables, and a veritable sea of mashed potatoes. He digs in with relish, and surfaces only a while later to find Bran pulling quietly at his pint, watching him with some amusement. 

“You weren’t joking when you said you were famished,” says Bran, his lilting Welsh accent turning slightly sharper on the last word. Will blinks, before realising that was Bran’s attempt to imitate his English. 

“Shut up,” Will says, grinning, and is pleased when Bran grins back.

*

It’s nearing midnight by the time they drive though the tight bend in the road where the Grey King had played his tricks on Rhys and Will, and Will cannot help but strain his senses there, but all is still; nothing but the stern echoes of slate and grit. 

“You looked a little queer back there, Will,” Bran says as he steers the Land Rover up the track off the road and into the Clwyd Farm. 

Will startles and turns to look at Bran questioningly, but Bran’s focus is straight ahead. His profile looks particularly noble, Will notes absently to himself, though it still possessed that otherworldly quality conveyed by his pale skin and arrogant air. 

“Just overtired, I suppose, “ says Will lightly, and this time Bran turns his head to give him a quick look. 

“Sleep well tonight, then,” Bran replies, and brings the Rover to a slow, rolling halt. “Wait here.”

He jumps out of the jeep and goes round to the front to undo the latch on the stile and swing the gate open. In the harsh headlights of the jeep, Bran looks almost ghostly; his arms, bared by the cut-off shirt that he’s wearing, gleam white by jeep-light and moonlight, and his hair almost looks like a crown. Will restrains the urge to bow his head and say _my liege_ when Bran climbs back in, and yawns instead. 

“All right,” Bran chuckles, “We’re almost there, sleepyhead. Don’t fall asleep in here, now, or I’ll have to take you home with me, and Da and I haven’t got a nice bed for you like your Aunt Jen does.” 

“I could sleep out here under the stars,” Will says dreamily. 

Bran laughs incredulously. “In Wales? And get drenched by the rain come tomorrow morning, get pneumonia, and spend the rest of the holidays in the hospital?” 

Will blinks slowly at him; his eyelashes feel like they weigh a pound. He really does feel quite tired now. “I suppose if you put it that way...”

“We’re here!” Bran announces; the Rover stops quite abruptly this time round. “Here, Will, you just go on in, and I’ll bring your bags in for you after.” 

“What,” Will laughs a little, “you don’t need to do that.”

Bran glares at him. It is, Will feels, slightly uncalled for. “Just get in there, boyo.” 

The Welsh, Will reflects, are very strange people. He goes, anyway, too tired to argue it out, and honestly not feeling like carrying his rucksack. The cottage is nice and warm on the inside, his Aunt Jen in the kitchen just to the back of the house with a cup of tea and a slice of thick brown bread with butter. There’s some bara brith, too, and Will eats all of it. He’s a growing boy. And maybe he feels a little self-conscious, because Bran’s just leaning in the doorway to the kitchen and looking at him eat, like there never was anything more interesting than an Englishman eating.   
He says as much, and Aunt Jen laughs. “Are you wanting some yourself, Bran?” she asks, and moves to cut a slice for him.

“Ah,” Bran says, sounding alarmed — it seems he still isn’t overly used to kindness. “No, it’s all right. I ought to be off, really. Da will be worrying. Are you coming with us tomorrow, Will?”  
Will looks up from his tea blankly.

“Taking some of the sheep up to pasture,” Bran says in response to the Will’s questioning silence. “Get some good Welsh mountain air in you. Vim and vigour in your dull English limbs.” 

“I see the chip on your shoulder hasn't lessened any," Will retorts.

Bran laughs, saying, "Why should it? See you tomorrow," and leaves whistling tunelessly.

*

Mid-morning sunlight is streaming in through the curtain gaps when Will blinks awake. He groans and stretches, getting the kinks of travel out of his arms and legs, feeling the ache in his back. He lies like that for a while, sprawled out against warm sheets, and is on the verge of dozing off again when he hears booted feet come clomping up the path to the kitchen door and the light tenors of Rhys and Bran’s voices. 

They’re both making great inroads into plates of bacon and eggs when Will makes his way into the kitchen, and look up at the same time. 

“Hark at him!” Rhys says. “Getting later and later as he gets older.” 

“Morning, Rhys,” Will says peaceably, and sits down with his own plate of breakfast. “Bran.”

Bran shakes his head. “The laziness of the English, Rhys. We’ve been up since six, lazybones, and come in from half a morning’s hard work to find you just out of bed. What have you to say about yourself, man?”

“I’m preparing myself for university life.” Will bites into a slice of toast. “Paul says that’s how it was for him.”

“Paul is the one who does music, isn’t he?” Aunt Jen asks, smiling fondly. “You could write to him, Bran, and ask about that.” 

“I could,” Bran agrees, and eats his last spoonful of eggs. Turning to Rhys, he asks, “More shearing?”

“More shearing,” Rhys agrees glumly, and looks up when his father comes into the room with the paper in his hands. “You’re a slave-driver, Da.” 

“Come now,” David Evans says, “John’s already done with his tea, and he’s out with Owen sorting the wool, and the both of them not as young as you.” 

“Coming to help, Will?” Bran says, turning his tawny gaze on Will. There’s a faint hint of mocking challenge in the tilt of his chin, which really is just ridiculous. Will’s still very much a seventeen year old boy, and the Old One in him stays quiescent when his temper gets just the slightest bit ruffled.

He sticks his chin up, too, and says, “Of course!” and then remembering himself, “I’ve never done this before, though.”

Rhys laughs and shakes his head, pushing himself back from the table with a harsh noise as the chair legs scrape against the slate-tiled floor. “Come on, boyo, we’ll teach you.”

“I’m going down to Aberdyfi for the day, Will,” Aunt Jen says, “if you want to see the estuary instead.”

For a moment Will feels as though he is spinning out of time; soft, yearning music tinkling clear as bells in the air when a reel of images from their quest in the Lowland Hundred rises in his mind; that fantastical land drowned by a promise; a maze and a sword; a hawthorn tree and a frightened boy. He shakes himself, like a dog coming out of the water, and smiles. “No thank you, Auntie, I think I’ll have to throw my lot in with Rhys and Bran here.” 

“You’re a good lad, cariad,” she says, eyes twinkling. 

Rhys nudges him in the side as they crowd out the door. “Mam never calls me that, anymore. Come here to steal all the love, have you?”

“Can’t help it if I’m more loveable than you, you oik,” Will says cheekily, and yelps, “Oi!” when Rhys punches him in the arm mock-angrily. 

Bran watches them over his sunglasses in a superior fashion. “Might be a good thing I haven’t any cousins.” 

Rhys lets go of Will, then, to sling an arm around Bran. “What are you talking about, boy? You’ve got me and Dai, haven’t you? At least when Dai comes back to Clywyd.” 

“Oh,” Will says as they near the shearing shed and he sees the fenced-off meadow in which shorn sheep are milling around, baa-ing distressedly. “Look at them, the poor things.”

His Uncle David furrows his brows. “Those really ought to be inside the shed, I do not know what John and Owen are thinking.” He lengthens his stride and leaves the three of them behind.

“Best harden your heart, Billy-oh,” Bran says with an odd smile. “It’s not as if it’s a slaughterhouse.” 

“They just look so sad and naked,” says Will, feeling silly. 

Bran — Will just knows he does — Bran rolls his eyes behind his sunglasses. “It’s for them, man, buck up. Summer’s going to get hotter.” 

“Lessens the chance of fly strike, too,” Rhys adds, and pushes open the door to the shed. “Come on lads, into the shed with you now.”

*

Sunlight and cool air stream in through the large, rectangular gaps near the roof, and a ceiling fan lazily whirs high up over their heads, but it’s still hot in the shed — from the warmth of the sheep and the hard work of shearing them. Sweat trickles unpleasantly down Will’s neck and back, and he wipes his forehead roughly against the sleeve of his t-shirt, his hands being occupied with a set of shears and holding his sheep in place. 

Will’s on his second sheep for the hour (with everyone else miles ahead and John Rowlands at fifteen) and wondering why the trick of sheep-shearing hadn’t been included in the Book of Gramarye, when his hand slips in its hold on the ewe’s abdomen. It disagrees deeply and there’s a blinding pain in his jaw. 

He shouts aloud, shocked, and the ewe makes a stupid baaa-ing noise. He doesn’t dare let go of the stupid creature, though, sitting up as it is against his legs, and she seems satisfied to have got her point across. Blinking sudden tears of pain away, he startles to feel a hand against his shoulder.

“Let me look at that, bachgen,” John Rowlands says, his leather-brown face creasing into a frown, and gently feels along Will’s jaw. He tuts under his breath. “Nothing broken, but I daresay it will hurt to eat for a while yet. And you,” he looks down at the ewe in question. “No more funny business.” It _mehh_ s quietly in response.

Bran calls out, “Are you all right, Will?” and his voice is high with worry.

Will opens his mouth to call back, and promptly snaps it shut again when the pain seems almost to swell. 

“Hmm,” John Rowlands deftly moves Will out of the way and take his place, with the sheep. “Go to the cottage and ask for some ice to put on that.” Raising his voice, he calls, “Nothing broken.”

Will turns around to give Bran a thumbs up, and sees him intently bent over his sheep, knees holding her nose in place; the muscles in his left arm stand out in relief as he leans on it into the sheep’s right flank and those in his back shifting under the thin cloth of his shirt as he shears a waterfall of fleece off. Bran calls back, “Good,” as he cleans wool off the last leg efficiently.

“He has had a lot of practice,” says John Rowlands. “Off you go now.”

Outside the shed, Will stands still for a moment, blinking in the bright sunlight. The pain in his jaw pulses, and Will winces, before setting off across the yard. The cottage is silently empty but for the ticking of the kitchen clock when Will gets in, and he remembers that Aunt Jen is in Aberdyfi. He eyes the fridge, and then goes round it into the pantry, where he is satisfied to find the freezer. Getting out some ice, he presses it to his jaw and hisses out through his teeth.

The quiet seems almost tangible, pressing in on his ears and filling up in his head, as Will hunts down a clean dishcloth to fill with ice. Even though they’re all grown up, now, there are at any one time at least two or three of the Stanton children in the old Vicarage to fill it with some chatter and noise. It won’t ever be the same again, as when Will had been smaller; he, the youngest, is leaving home too. There’s a jagged sense of loss in his chest that swells in time to the ache in his jaw. Will presses down his face harder against the cold compress in his hand, elbow on the table, and sighs. It is, he knows, only the first of the many losses and peeling away from his old life that are to come. Perhaps that is why he has come back to Wales after all these years, to this riverine valley in the mountains that has always largely belonged to his other life as an Old One. 

*

“Duw, I’m tired,” Bran exhales. It’s just past seven, but the sun is hanging high in the sky still, spreading golden warmth over the valley. They’ve taken a batch of shorn sheep up to pasture and Bran has sprawled out on the sweet-smelling grass, one white arm flung over his eyes. Will collapses next to him in a heap and Bran turns his head as Will lets out a noisy sigh. “You weren’t too bad today, English.” 

Raising an eyebrow, Will raises a hand to touch gingerly at the soft, raw spot on his jaw. “You must be joking.”

Bran’s breath hisses out through his teeth as he raises himself up on an elbow and lowers his dark glasses, back on now that they’re outside in the full glare of the sun, to peer at the blossoming bruise. “That’s a good one you’ve got there, Will. It will be hurting for days.” The closeness of their heads now that Bran’s only half-reclined sets Will’s heart thumping painfully in his throat, and chasing close on the surprise is a dismal _Oh no_. 

He offers up a half smile and flops back onto the grass. “It’s a battle wound I shall bear with pride.” The air is sweet and pure, up here on the mountainside, cool and invigorating after the cloistered warmth of the shearing shed. Will breathes it in slowly, trying to calm his heartbeat, but Bran’s rolled onto his side to better look down over Will. It’s very disobliging of him.

“Battle wound, is it?” His eyebrows rise over the rim of his sunglasses and his face is blank underneath them, but there’s a twitching in the corner of his mouth. 

“Yes,” Will says solemnly. “One day all the sheep of Wales will rise up, and that ewe will be at the head of them.”

Bran bursts out laughing and falls back against the grass. “You talk such nonsense, English.”

“It’s the Welsh mountain air. Didn’t you tell me once, anyone who stayed up on the mountain for a night would come down either a poet or a madman?”

This merits the removal of the sunglasses so that Bran can give him a doubtful look. “I don’t remember. It was such a long time ago, anyway, how am I to be remembering all these things I may or may not have said to you?”

“Ah, well,” Will says, shrugging and looking away from the piercing golden gaze. “Perhaps it was John Rowlands.” 

“Might’ve been,” Bran says, not letting up on the eyeballing. “John knows lots of old stories. Hey, do you remember that carroty old villain Caradog Pritchard?”

How could Will forget. “Yes?”

“They say he spent a night up on Cader,” says Bran confidingly. “And we all know which one he came down as. Stark raving mad, that one ...” He trails off, face darkening. Will can only guess all too well what he is thinking of, and hurries to make a diversion.

“Anyone come down a poet, then, or is it all madmen?” 

Bran stands up, then, and stretches; his back arched and arms reaching out to the mountainside rising behind them. “I don’t know anyone else who’s spent a night up on Cader. Come on, let’s go. It’s about supper time now, I think.” 

So that is one more thing the Light have taken away from Bran’s memories. Will wonders suddenly if Owen Davies’s mind had been left untouched; if he alone of all the normal men in the world remember Bran’s true lineage. Ruminating on this, Will follows Bran silently down into the valley.

*

On Friday Will is left alone to his own devices.

“Sorry, Will,” Bran says, rushing around the Davies cottage collecting things into a battered music case. “I’ve got a music lesson with Meic Griffiths, up Dolgellau way. Won’t be back till supper time. See you later!” Closing the case with a definitive snap, he claps Will on the shoulder and runs out of the door and to the car he’s borrowing from Aunt Jen for the day. 

Will waves limply at the back of the car, and when he turns to go find out what needs doing on the farm, Owen Davies is standing before him, looking very stern. “Um,” says Will helplessly. 

“Would you like a spot of tea?” Owen asks, in a way that suggests that Will had better say yes. 

“Yes please,” Will says obediently.

It is Owen who puts his mug down first, when the tea has been brewed and they are sat at the rough-scrubbed wooden table in the kitchen, sipping at their tea.  
“You did him no favours,” Owen says, his gaze forthright and direct. "Bran."

Will finds himself speechless. The protest that it wasn’t him who’d done it bubbles up to his lips and dies there.

Owen Davies goes on, eyes glittering. “You do not think it would have been good or important for a boy strange as he to know who he is? Once he found out, he was different. It helped, you know, even though I would not have told him, or if you had not come to this valley. Maybe that was a mistake. But you, you and all your powers, I think you have made a greater mistake.” He buttons himself up then, almost as though surprised at all he has to say, and that he has said it. 

“He made his choice," Will says faintly. "He forsook his birthright. "

Owen snorts inelegantly. "He chose his home, boy. And you and your masters are fools if you do not see it was his ties to this land and her people that keep him here."  
The problem is that Will sees all too well Owen's point. He had been a young boy suddenly bereft of friendships forged through adventures only he remembered; and is a liegeman forgotten by his king, afterall. The Light's decision damned him to loneliness as much as it did Bran and the Drews to ignorance. 

Will shook his head. "I don't know what I could do, anyway," he tells the table helplessly. "I can't just...make him remember again because I want him to."

And there, he's said it. His neck warms under the sudden softening of Owen's eyes. There is a strange sort of understanding in them that makes Will want to squirm away from.

"That is a hard master you have," Owen says slowly. "But would it not be better for two to shoulder your burden?"

"Bran isn't a creature of the Light," Will says sadly. "And he did reject his — Arthur's offer."

"But he is a man of this earth," Owen counters, his dark eyes alight with something like passion.

"Well," Will blinks. "I suppose. But I can't just tell him. He'd think I'd gone round the bend." 

"Perhaps," says Owen, getting to his feet. Will does too, recognising the end of their strange conversation. 

He stops just outside the door and turns back shyly. "Thanks, Mr Davies, " he says, and is rewarded with a short nod.

*

On Monday, Will finds Bran swinging the Rover’s keys round and round his index finger while slouching against the crockery cupboard, when he comes in from his morning visit with the orphaned lambs.

“It’s a bloody good thing you weren’t here when they were new-born, or they’d think you were their mum. Follow you all the way back to whatsit.”

“Hunterscombe,” says Will, and eyes the keys still jangling in circles. “I don’t think sheep do that, do they?”

“Oh, they do.” Bran claps Will on the shoulder, turning him back round to march back out the door. “All right, boyo, I promised you a trip down to Tywyn, didn’t I? And I have to fetch an order for your aunt from the department store in Aberdyfi, so that will be a nice adventure for us today.”

“Super,” Will says, getting into the Rover. “But won’t we be needed on the farm?”

“No, the shearing’s done, mate.” Bran squints at Will. “How’s the bruise coming along? Don’t want the townfolk to think we’re abusing you up here.” 

“Oh! It hardly hurts at all now.”

“Good,” says Bran. Anything else he might’ve said is drowned out by the engine sputtering to life. It’s too loud to talk in the drive and Bran puts the radio (a recent installation) on, so they roll into Tywyn proper merrily yowling along to the latest radio hits. Turning into the garage, off the high street, Bran shouts, “I have to pick some things up for the tractor here, but we can go wherever after this. Even the beach.” The sky and surf look grim; a grey and windy summer day. 

“Didn’t we need to go to Aberdyfi for Aunt Jen’s things after this?”

“Oh! That’s right. Duw, it’s a good thing you’re here or I’d have forgotten.” Bran parks and turns the engine off, and they both get out.

Will inspects the fixed gear bicycles in the yard as Bran goes about his business, and is looking slightly enviously at a beautiful mountain bike when he hears the gravel crunch behind him.

“I wish I had a bike like this,” he tells Bran without turning around.

“You had a fancy one when we were twelve, didn’t you? Talked about it all the time, too.”

“I outgrew it ages ago, Bran.”

“Funny,” says Bran, smile audible in his voice. “I couldn’t tell.” 

Will turns to find Bran looking pointedly down his nose at Will, and punches Bran in the arm. “Ha bloody ha.” He starts crunching across the yard to the Rover. “Come on, I want to go to the post office and have a look on the High Street for a snack.”

“All right,” Bran says peaceably, “I’m feeling peckish myself. We’re walking there, though. Better parking here than you’d find out there.”

*

When Will comes out of the post office, having written all the requisite postcards to various family members, he almost trips on the step up to street level.

Bran is waiting outside the bakery across the road, a thick brown envelope from the conservatoire that he’d picked up earlier in the post office tucked under one arm, a bag of sandwiches in the other, and is _beset on all sides by girls_. Three of them, chattering at him while he gazes coolly back at them from behind the dark half-circles of his glasses and gives what look like short answers. They draw away from him, a little, when Will approaches, and Bran says something in Welsh to them before striding out to meet Will halfway.

“Not three years ago you would have seen them make the sign of the evil eye after passing me in the street,” Bran says quietly to Will. “And now they think because they smile at me and bat their eyelashes I will forget.” He laughs then — an ugly, scornful noise. 

When Will looks at Bran his face is as inscrutable as ever, eyes hidden and lips thin. 

“Bran,” Will says unhappily.

Bran smiles at him and slings a companionable arm around Will’s shoulders. “You’ve never looked at me like the rest of them. Not even when we first met and Cafall though you were a sheep.” He laughs a little in remembrance, and it stings a little to see how the Light has reshaped Bran’s memories. Owen Davies’s words strike at Will’s heart then, and he just about manages a smile.

“He was a good dog.”

“The very best,” Bran says fiercely, before his face smoothes over. “Anyway, sandwich?”

But Will has been distracted — “Oh, a bookshop!” 

Bran snorts. “Go on then, I’ll wait out here for you.” 

*

Will’s wandering back through the stacks of yellowing, wonderful-smelling books towards the counter when he hears them.

“He’s grown up well hasn’t he, Bran Davies?”

A clear laugh. “Oh yes, and those sunglasses!”

What about the damned glasses, Will wonders grumpily.

“I know,” the first voice says excitedly. “Very glamorous. Adds a little something.”

“Mystery. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen his eyes, and I was in primary school with him all the way up to college.” 

Deciding that he’s heard quite enough, Will puts more weight into his steps as he walks purposefully out of the stacks. Sure enough, two dark-haired Welsh girls are standing at the counter: one behind and the other, evidently visiting her friend at work, leaning over the side of it. 

“Hallo,” says the cashier in a friendly way. “Found something you want then?” She nods with a warm smile at the books in Will’s arms.

“Ah,” Will says, the wind quite taken out of his sails. “Um. Yes.”

Her friend smiles at him too, and there’s something in it that reminds Will of his sister Mary when she’s after something. “You’re staying at Clwyd Farm, aren’t you? Whereabouts are you from? I’m Bessie.” She’s the first voice, clear as day.

The cashier laughs at Will’s slightly hunted look and starts ringing up his selections. “Don’t mind us, we don’t get this much excitement in Tywyn.”

“Excitement?” Will asks politely, and adds. “I’ve come visiting from down in Bucks. Um, I’m Will.”

“Oh yes,” Bessie says, “That Bran Davies you came in here with — he doesn’t really pay anyone much attention you know. Whenever he’s in town.”

“Puts on airs.”

“Doesn’t look you in the eye.”  
“Hard to tell, though,” the cashier says fairly. “He could be. It’s those sunglasses of his.”

“Well,” Will feels compelled to interject here. “His eyes _are_ photosensitive. The light hurts them, you know.”

“Have you seen them?” Bessie asks eagerly. “What are they like?”

Will stares at her. “Um.” He doesn’t know how to describe them, not without sounding like a sot. 

“Oh,” the cashier says and hurriedly packs away the last book into the brown paper bag. “Bessie’s just got a bit of a thing for Bran. Don’t mind her.” 

Bessie shrieks with laughter. “You do too, Cerys Jones, and don’t _you_ dare tell Bran, Will from Buckinghamshire.”

Will takes his bag of books and wonders what compelled them to tell him in the first place. “I shan’t,” he promises, and flees.

“Have a good day!” Cerys calls after him, and then the door is closing behind him in a jingle of chimes. 

Outside, Bran slides his glasses down his nose a bit to give Will a look.

“You took your time,” he says.

“Yes,” Will says, and bounces his bag of books meaningfully “Well.” 

Then Bran grins, and it is possibly more horrible when he slides the glasses back up and waggles his eyebrows. “Never thought you’d be such a ladies’ man, Stanton.”

Will splutters and tries to take a swipe at Bran while not dropping his books, and Bran ducks away down the street, laughing gleefully. Will is fairly certain at this point that he’s probably given Bessie and Cerys another thing to gossip over, and runs after Bran resignedly.

*

Bran drives them and their packages up the steep, winding road out of Aberdyfi town and all the extended way to the end of Panorama Walk. He parks the jeep half on and half off the grassy verge and leads the way through a minefield of cow pats till they come onto a path where the mountain falls steeply away to the right, looking out onto the Dyfi estuary melting, shimmering and watery purple, out into the grey sea. 

"Thought we could have tea up here," Bran says, while Will catches his breath. 

"Lovely," Will says, and takes the thermos and a chocolate bar Bran hands to him. 

They stand there in companionable silence, contemplating, and Will wonders if this would be the right time to try and bring Bran's memories back. It wouldn't be too far away from where they had walked along that invisible path to the Lost Land, and the light drizzle that had started made for a certain atmosphere. 

Will drew his handkerchief out from his pocket to wipe his face momentarily dry with, and something fell out along with it. It was small and blue-greeb and stood out against the short, grazed grass he and Bran stood on. 

Recognition hits like a shock at the same time Bran stoops to pick it up.

A cry to — Will doesn't even know what he'd say, but it dies on his tongue as Bran straightens back up, pebble in hand and a strange, wondering look on his face.

“This,” and Bran inquisitively cocked his head like a bird. “What ...”

Will has no idea how it got in his pocket; Bran had given it to him, that one summer's day a few aeons ago, it seems now. And he had kept it, of course, treasured it like the precious artefact it was. He wonders what he's supposed to do with this chance. 

"I," Will starts, before his voice cracks. 

Bran blinks and an incredulous smile starts spreading slowly across his face. Will has no idea what he's thinking. 

"It's a pretty thing to have in one's pocket, isn't it?"

"Yes?" Will guesses. This waiting for the other shoe to drop is torture. 

"So which lucky girl is it whose pebble it is you carry around?" Bran asks, and Will is fairly certain he isn't imagining the sharp edge to Bran's smile. Or the way the bottom has just dropped out from his stomach.

"Oh, here," Bran continues carelessly, talking over Will's splutters. "Have it back, you look like you're about to have a fit."

He reaches over and casually takes Will’s hand, turning it palm up.

"Bran," Will says unsteadily.

"What," Bran replies, his eyes hidden as he dips his head and drops the pebble into Will’s palm. 

It's the reflexive tightening of his fingers around Will’s wrist that give him away. 

That, and the way his head jerks up, golden eyes piercing into Will’s own. 

Will keeps absolutely still as Bran searches for whatever it is he's looking for. An eternity and a half seem to pass before Bran lets out a shaky breath, and laughs weakly. 

"Damn," he says. "That's what, I suppose, eh, my dewin?"

* 

"So," Bran says, later, when they're back on Clwyd and perched on the side of Bird Rock, under the darkening sky. The moon is already out, but the stars have not yet come out to play. If Will stretched his senses, he might be able to hear faintly their celestial song. But he wants very much to stay in this here and now, and fix all his senses upon Bran. 

"So," Bran says again. "I'm still angry with Merriman, you tell him that for me next time you Old Ones have a gathering again."

“They're all gone,” says Will sadly, thinking about small, clever Gwion, and John Wayland Smith and his wise wife, and Farmer Dawson, hardly hearing himself speak. “All gone out of Time. I wish I could, but they're all gone. And me left behind."

Bran stares at him. "Oi," Bran says gently, and Will starts when he feels cool, calloused fingers slide between his own and squeeze. "I'm here."

"You are," Will agrees, smiling reflexively. 

It feels a bit like he's diving off a Cornish cliff again when Bran smiles back, and tugs imperiously at their hands so Will sways inexorably closer.

And it feels very much like the catch of his wings on the ocean's up drafts when they kiss, smiling into it; a perfect moment on a cool late summer night.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun facts: the working title of this fic was 'sexy welsh shepherds', and discarded (though SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED) titles included things like "the one with the sad sheep" and "sheep-shearing and other misadventures". I've taken the title from a Lorde lyric.


End file.
